Faith, Love and Respect for ALL

Posts tagged ‘Anniversary’

Today is Dorothy and Autism Proud’s 6month anniversary. It seems like just yesterday I posted my first blog and yet here I am looking at my stats for 45 posts, which have been viewed a total of 1,086 times in 30+ countries and 16+ languages, at least that is what WordPress tells me. Since I don’t know a lot about blogging I am mot sure how good these stats actually are, but it feels like a HUGE accomplishment to us.

People are actually finding Our Journey via search engines and sharing it with their loved ones. I cannot even express my level of excitement, humility, joy and pride. While I wish I could write more often, I know that I am writing as much/little as I am meant to at this time on Our current path. THANK YOU to all those who read my posts and visit Our page; because of you I have an entire new level of Inspiration and Faith that is filling Our Journey with even more Positive, Love, Hope, Acceptance and Tolerance, which can make a difference in showing the world that Different is NOT Less and Ours is Magical world filled with never-ending Miracles and Blessings.

Now that I have bragged and gushed a bit, I would like to take a moment and reflect on where Our Journey has taken us over the past 6months. We have come such a long way in such a short period of time. In April I was hurt, disappointed, angry, fed-up and probably had as much nastiness and negativity in me as the people I was trying to show the “proverbial light” to. In the beginning I wrote as I was trying to win an argument, and if it had not been for Marie proof-reading my early posts, I think Autism Proud would have crashed and burned almost as soon as it started. I was also early in my recovery with Al-Anon, and although I could talk-the-talk, I was not yet proficient at walking-the-walk. There is a long road between Awareness and Action, and it is called Acceptance. I learned that when you try to take short-cuts you miss a very important and wondrous part of the path.

Some days are more of a struggle than others, and staying positive is a battle I think I will fight for the rest of my life. Being positive, and seeing the bright side of life, is a choice and therefore it can be tested at anytime. I pray that as time passes and I progress in my program that it will become second nature, but until then I must stay vigilant to keep the negativity at bay. Although I can already see that something has changed in me, which has also changed Our Journey in a beautiful way. I no longer go to the dark-side as my first reaction, I no longer judge and criticize what I do not understand, I no longer feel defensive all the time, and I no longer think there is a cosmic plot against me. I spend less time asking “Why Me?” and more time being thankful for all the blessings in Our life and instead asking “What do I need to learn here?” Others can see and feel the change as well, and it makes our daily interactions more enjoyable and less stressful, most days. 😉

I do not have all (if any of) the answers when it comes to Autism, Al-Anon, Motherhood, Spouses, Family, Friends, etc… However, I am finding new thought processes and ways of behaving that suit Our family goals. Our more positive way of viewing the world not only helps me be the woman I know I can be; but our family is truly showing what Hope, Love, Faith, Respect and Acceptance for ALL can do. We want our children to grow-up loving, respecting and accepting everyone for who they are; the only way we can teach them this priceless lesson is to live it. One of my favorite passages from Hope For Today sums it up perfectly: “I cried to my God, ‘Where will I ever find integrity?’ The answer was this: ‘If you want integrity in your life, you must express it yourself.’ My next thought was ‘Let It Begin with Me.’”

♥ We are letting it begin with Us, and we THANK YOU for helping light Our Path! ♥

It was SEVEN years ago on this date that we walked (well, I walked, he hobbled due to a bad foot, and it is still a running joke) into a courtroom surrounded by family members and became husband and wife. It was nothing fancy, but it was real and true. I believe this is the foundation of our life. We are not a fancy household, financially or otherwise; but we are a home filled with love, laughter, truth, faith and an Au-Some reality.

Our 7 years of marriage have been a wonderful, trying, exciting, terrifying, educational, silly, etc… adventure filled with accomplishments and failures that have all paved the way for us to be the couple we are today. We have not had the smoothest roads, but we also have not had the rockiest either. Some days we are madly in love, and other days we can’t stand each other. There are times when we are so in-sync it is almost scary, then there are times that we cannot communicate to save our sanity. This is life, there is good and bad, there are celebrations and disappointments, there is happy and sad, there are ups and downs, etc… I am VERY THANKFUL to be riding the amazing roller-coaster of life with my wonderful husband!

Life is a journey filled many different paths, some take us through joy and some take us through sorrow; however they all take us where we need to go in order to reach our God-given potential and be the people we are destined to be. There are many paths that I have taken, which I could not have walked (or crawled) down without my husband by my side. He is my rock, he loves me for who I am, supports me always and regardless if he agrees with me or not he stands beside me. We are a united front that is not easily divided; however that does not mean we are always in agreement. We have many disagreements and varying views on many things life throws our way. Even on our first date we could barely find a topic we agreed on and saw in the same light. He sees the world as black and white, whereas I see it as shades of gray with many rainbows. Again I cannot help but feel that is why we are so perfect for each other. We take the two ends of the spectrum that our backgrounds have afforded us, and we create a middle ground, so that our children will have the best of both worlds.

We are far from perfect, we do not live in a world of constant sunshine and rainbows, and we struggle some days just to survive and face another day. We are human, we are flawed and we are extraordinary! Our marriage has been filled with many wise choices and many mistakes; however we are still going strong after 7 years and cannot wait to see what the next 50+ will hold.